Inset: Cindy Sanchez (Aurora Police Department). Background: Chicago’s Midway Airport (Google Maps).
A woman from Texas was recently apprehended for attempting to organize the abduction of two children for monetary gain with plans to send them to Mexico, as reported by Illinois law enforcement.
Cindy Sanchez, aged 47, is charged with multiple counts of kidnapping through deception, unlawful restraint, and child abduction without custodial rights, based on records from the 16th Judicial Circuit.
The authorities caught Sanchez at Midway International Airport this week while she was with two children, ages 11 and 13, as indicated by a press release from the Aurora Police Department.
Officers responded to a residence on Rosewood Avenue in Aurora—a substantial suburb approximately 40 miles west of Chicago—around 3:30 p.m. on Thursday after receiving concerns from a family about a potential abduction, police stated.
“Upon arrival, officers found that the juveniles were with family,” the press release noted. “An unidentified woman came to their residence, claiming she had to take the children on behalf of their mother to another state.”
Ultimately, the abduction suspicions were allegedly validated when Sanchez supposedly departed with both children, despite the children’s mother never granting permission for such a move.
The local law enforcement agency then enlisted the help of the significantly larger Chicago Police Department to track down the trio.
Police found Sanchez and both children at Midway Airport – the Second City’s second-busiest airport – and the woman was arrested.
Both children were recovered – safe and unharmed – police said.
Then, investigators uncovered the locus of the alleged plot.
Sanchez is a resident of Fort Worth, Texas – the second-largest of three major cities in the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington Metroplex. The defendant was further identified as a relative of the children’s father.
“It was learned the children’s father, who does not have legal custody of the children, paid the suspect to bring the children to him in Mexico via the Texas border,” the police department said.
Sanchez was arrested on Friday and detained in the Kane County Adult Justice Center. She was out of jail by Saturday morning after a Friday court appearance resulted in a release order. The defendant is next slated to appear in court for a status hearing on Sept. 18.
